Shouting it from the rooftops

I think I need to get more asters. Yes, in fact I know I do. My Purple Domes are all in full glorious blooming splendor right now, but I need more. LOTS more. So my yard becomes that place that everyone has to drive past in the fall and see the display.

Anyone got any you'd like to divide? I'll swap you some Purple Dome asters.

I was painting DS's room last weekend, the room that used to be mine here in this old house in the country. Of all the things I don't remember about my childhood, there are a few that I do, and one thing that stands out in my mind are times when I just hid out in my room, all alone, where nobody could hurt me. I was safe there.

My old room is upstairs, and the north window overlooks the part of the kitchen that was added on below. I could take the screen out of my window and crawl out onto the roof, and that's exactly what I did, ALL the time. Usually at night though, when my parents were asleep, because my dad wouldn't be too thrilled with me crawling out onto the roof in the dead of night. I wonder why.

But it was there that I would sit on the sharp scratchy singles and gaze northward, in the direction of the city of my birth, and think about her. Where was my mother...100 miles away through the dark sky and silent landscape, I knew she was out there, and I waited for her.

I waited for my "real" mother to come and get me, all alone on that rooftop, and holding my breath ever time a pair of headlights loomed on the horizon. I would hope - no, pray - that those headlights would slow down and pull into my driveway, and that mysterious brown haired, brown eyed woman would get out of the car and sweep me into her arms. I would finally see her face, finally hear her voice, I would finally be where I belonged.

But then how could she, right? She didn't know where I was any more than I knew where she was, but in my little girl's brain, she had to have some sort of mystical power to just know. Our connection was spritual, and I knew I could "beam" my thoughts into her brain.

i tried to every night, especially those nights when I waited for her to come.

I think back on those days and feel so sad for that little girl. Ironically enough, the adult me is still stuck on that roof, waiting and waiting, for a mother who is just not going to come. This time she knows where I am, she knows how to reach me, but she either can't or simply won't - and that realization has been getting pretty obvious. Perhaps I need to beam more thoughts her way.

Thing is, it used to just kill me, it hurt so bad that I would stuff it and deny it and, well, go searching for some low-lying fog where I could sip my kool-aid. But as time goes by, it doesn't hurt as much. Maybe I am just numb, or maybe I am just tired of being hurt. But I still think about climbing onto that roof sometimes, just in case.